Artist of the Week: Jenny O. on Playing the Beacon Theatre and Her New Album, Automechanic

Last Sunday evening, fashion-world types including Fern Mallis, model Jessica Hart, and her boyfriend, Stavros Niarchos, waded into the Upper West Side’s sold out Beacon Theatre alongside Deadheads, suit-and-tie businessmen, and high school kids alike. Most had gathered to see headliner Rodriguez, the decidedly low-key cult icon and subject of last year’s Academy Award-winning documentary Searching for Sugar Man, but the crowd was also there to watch a seamlessly paired opening performance by 30-year-old Jenny O., who announced shortly after taking the stage that “I actually met this band today. We’ve had one rehearsal. Aren’t they great?” Despite a four-decade age difference, the two acts seemed as if they were cut from the same carefree cloth.

“I feel very chaotic as a musician, always alone with my backpack and my guitar, showing up at places with the wrong address and without the proper resources,” she said a few days before the show. “And [Rodriguez] is 70 years old and this legend, but he usually rolls up with his gig bag and doesn’t know what’s going on either . . . .We’re just these two weirdos and it’s hilarious. It’s why we became friends.”

With the look and slight air of Janis Joplin, Jenny O. is Los Angeles-based by way of Long Island, where she grew up singing harmonies in her father’s rock cover band—her favorite song they revived was the Association’s “Never My Love”—before studying classical and jazz music in college and eventually heading West in 2008. “I met Jonathan Wilson and his whole Laurel Canyon crew, and knew I wanted to be a part of it,” she says. Since then, Wilson has served as a mentor, friend, and collaborator. “He spearheaded this resurgence of big jam sessions where the most incredible musicians would come through. Members of Wilco and the Black Crowes and the Grateful Dead would come and play covers all night. I had some life-changing experiences there. That turned me on to California.”

Five years later, with an EP and multiple unreleased albums to her name (“I might release ‘early works’ someday, but at this point it’s ‘old work’ ”) Jenny O. has recently put out a new album, Automechanic, which Wilson produced. Full of lilting, soulful guitar chords juxtaposed with her full, resonant, yet soothing voice, the album’s title track is based on Jenny O.’s desire “to fix cars and be self-sufficient,” she says. “It’s actually a dream of mine that I’ve been pursuing. I named the record Automechanic and all of a sudden I get to do all this cool car stuff [for the album art]. That was basically my reason!” She continues by explaining that she drives a 1979 Chevy Nova, which seems like it could be her mascot. “A car doesn’t just project outwards; it projects inwards, as well. Like your clothes, it’s not about impressing others. It’s about living the life you want to.”